Don't miss Alex Filippenko speaking at the Astronomy program

The closing talk at our upcoming program Copernicus, Galileo & Kepler: Redefining our Place in the Universe (Oct. 2 & 3) will be delivered by Alex Filippenko of the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department. While the title "Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe" may sound intimidating for a lay audience, Filippenko has a well-deserved reputation for making complex scientific concepts understandable. In addition to publishing 500 research papers, he has been voted the "Best Professor" on campus five times. Other recognition awards include the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization in 2004 and the U.S. Professor of the Year award in 2006 (sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching). He has also produced a well-received astronomy video course for The Teaching Company on Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astonomy (96 30-minute lectures). Don't miss this chance to hear one of America's best known astronomers talking about what is sometimes considered the most important unsolved problem in physics: the nature of dark energy.

Henry Tenenbaum will be interviewing Filippenko on KRON Channel 4 News Weekend show (Sunday Sept. 27, 8:00-10:00 am).

Reinventing the Culture Business for the Attention Economy

That was the title of a seminar I went to with a couple of other Humanities West people on 9/9, sponsored by the National Arts Marketing Project. The keynote speaker was Doug McLennan (ArtsJournal.com), who made some very interesting points about the difficulties that many cultural organizations are having in making the transition from a mass culture dominated by TV, movies, and newspapers to a niche culture in which people have an almost infinite variety of choices about how to spend their time and money.

A few key observations:

• While half of the mainstream arts journalist jobs have gone away since 2005, there are some 300,000 arts blogs on the internet, and culturally focused media like the New Yorker and NPR are actually increasing their audience and thriving. (The New Yorker has more subscribers now in California than in New York.)
• We've moved from a service economy to an experience economy (think Starbucks), but the next phase is an attention economy, in which there is too much stuff competing for everyone's attention. Ironically, the more choices you have, the more likely you are to be dissatisfied with the choices you make, because you could have chosen so many other things.
• With so many choices, many people don't decide what to do until the last minute, and they are less likely to be loyal returning customers, even if they enjoyed their experience. What these people value is being part of a community and being active participants in whatever is being sold. They want to be able to make comments, express opinions, influence decisions, connect with other participants. This means giving up some real control over the customer relationship, which is hard for many traditional organizations.
• People aged 12-24 trust unknown peers more than they trust experts. That may seem irrational to an older generation, but the internet generation is comfortable with their wide social networks, and is distrustful of experts and authorities, who are always trying to tell them what to think and what to do and what to buy.
• "Losers build websites; winners build communities."

One of the big challenges that Doug didn't talk about, but that organizations like Humanities West face all the time, is how do you appeal to this younger potential audience, while still maintaining the loyalty and support of your older audience, who may be looking for very different things.

Book discussion on Sept. 21

At the suggestion of several Humanities West fans, we have organized related book discussions to be held regularly at the Commonwealth Club (595 Market Street, 2nd Floor). We anticipate about 6 events a year, with the discussions to be facilitated by Lynn Harris.

The first of these book discussions will be held on Monday, September 21st at 5:30 p.m. James A. Connor's book "Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother"will be discussed. This should provide valuable background to those who intend to attend Humanities West's program at the Herbst Theater on October 2nd and 3rd - Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler: Redefining Our Place in the Universe.

There will be no charge for these Humanities Book Discussion Group events at the Commonwealth Club. (If you'll be buying this book, also available in Kindle format, through Amazon, please use our referral link. We get a small percentage of the purchase price, at no additional cost to you. A painless way to help Humanities West.)